


who he hurts

by fleury



Category: Tiny Meat Gang (Band)
Genre: M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Unhealthy Relationships, i am so sorry mr kolodziejzyk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:54:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22301422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleury/pseuds/fleury
Summary: cody watches, his head pounding louder than his heart, as noel speaks quietly to a boy at a bar.he’s not jealous, that’s not it. he doesn’t get jealous unless it’s over someone he loves getting too close, too touchy. and he doesn’t love noel.
Relationships: Cody Ko/Noel Miller
Comments: 13
Kudos: 58





	who he hurts

**Author's Note:**

> my new writing playlist is incredibly “:(“ n i would like to shout it out for singlehandedly encouraging this!

hurting someone isn’t something that someone should want.

and those who do, who can break a heart manage not to think twice, they’ve got agendas. 

maybe it’s just the boys who weren’t raised delicately. or maybe it’s that some of them just like to watch tears drip from anguish-riddled eyes after leaving someone broken. maybe it’s the vindictive pleasure of seeing someone crumble as they walk out the door. maybe it’s the power stemming from leaving a person wounded in the worst way possible.

it could very well be that.

it could be the pain.

+

“you don’t mean shit to me.”

cody stares, horrified, heartbroken down to his marrow as the door slams in his face. every inch of his entire body aches and the breeze is crisp against his cheeks, cooling the damp skin until it bites. 

he stares and he doesn’t move. barely remembers how.

+

hurting people is apart of life. if cody snaps at someone a little too hard, gives them a bruising look, it’s an accident, barely a lapse, because that’s just life.

but the thing about _craving_ pain, wanting to hurt someone, is that it’s unnatural. he shouldn’t want it. and yet, it’s all he yearns for.

+

he watches, his head pounding louder than his heart, as noel speaks quietly to a boy at a bar. 

he’s not jealous, that’s not it. he doesn’t get jealous unless it’s over someone he loves getting too close, too touchy. and he doesn’t love noel.

noel is - he’s meaningless sex. noel’s a pastime, a distraction, a fucking mistake. noel’s someone that helps him take his mind off things, he doesn’t chirp him, doesn’t talk shit, keeps his voice soft and his hands softer.

he means little to nothing to cody. they’re friends, sure, mostly because they’ve been glued together through mutual friends. really, cody would rather hang out with devon. 

so it’s okay. it’s okay that cody gets devon, and he gets to mess with his hair after he spends decades styling it. it’s okay that he can talk to marcus about his day and fall asleep on spock’s shoulder while they watch comically bad movies. it’s okay. cody is okay.

+

if noel’s talking to him less, he’s noticed.

there’s not a chance in fucking hell he’s overthinking it because he doesn’t overthink things. his thoughts come out in black and white until he runs out of ink and crashes. he knows noel’s been avoiding him.

and, for starters, cody doesn’t care. hell, he legitimately could not care less. noel could run away to canada and cody would still manage to keep his head above water.

noel could leave right now. he could leave and fade away, and never step foot in los angeles ever again, and cody, he - he wouldn’t care.

what’s the point in caring if the person you care for doesn’t know it. 

+

cody doesn’t want to love himself.

he’s heard that shit enough. _they_ keep telling him to do it. and he isn’t sure how. isn’t sure how to love himself when he barely even knows who he is anymore. 

because every second of every day he feels like he’s about to reach his breaking point and it just doesn’t work, the whole loving yourself thing.

he needs someone else to do it. craves to be wanted; needs to be needed. it’s just not that simple, because he can’t ask for it, for something like that. it goes a lot deeper.

+

cody watches noel lean into another boy’s space and clamps his eyes shut.

he curls his fingers into his palms and stays like that until his skin flares red.

and when noel catches him looking he throws him a haphazard smile and laughs. 

cody hates that laugh.

+

_you don’t mean shit to me._

cody hears voices in his head sometimes. they’re never his own, but he won’t drown them out. he’ll lay back and listen until he forgets how words sound coming out of his own mouth. 

he lets the voices bleed into every thought that manifests itself and slides his eyes shut. 

there’s no point if you’re not wanted, there’s never been a point.

+

it’s noel who came to him first.

it’s noel who let himself show up at cody’s apartment and asked where his roommate was.

it’s noel who pinned his wrists to the sheets and made sure he kept feeling.

it’s noel that gave him the best night of his life and it’s cody who won’t say it. too proud, too cocky, too condescending, and he likes keeping this to himself. because no one needs to hear what goes on in his head. he isn’t sure if they could endure that kind of pain. 

+

cody wants to hurt noel.

he wants to make him suffer. he wants to show him how he feels. because noel’s perfect in every sense of the word. he doesn’t have to worry about a damn thing, doesn’t fret and keeps his cool. 

cody hates that. that noel can snap him in half and continue to live his life as though he’s done nothing wrong. continuing to make jokes with his friends and laugh, big and bright, while cody sits barely across from him, examining every little thing.

and he wants to make sure he always says the right stuff, never tripping or stuttering, because he wants to show noel that he’s fine without him, without his company. he wants to prove that he’s moved on, but he never can. 

and when he’s half drunk and excuses himself to the bathroom, he doesn’t catch noel trailing behind him. cody is barely aware of it when he gets pressed against the sink, all before the door even shuts entirely.

“hey,” cody breathes, and he can hear the hurt in his own voice, the way he sounds cracked open and shattered. he wonders if noel catches it too. he hopes he doesn’t.

“hi,” noel mumbles, low and heavy, and his breath smells like booze, which - cody should hate that. he should squirm away and chirp him for that shit, but he doesn’t. he revels in the heat, can practically taste his breath on his tongue, and he wants more. he’s dizzy with it.

“can i help you?” he asks, his tongue feeling a little too big for his own mouth. he licks his lips and noel sways in a little closer. he smiles and cody feels his throat click.

“you could.”

cody swallows. “noel, we can’t.”

“we can,” he says. “we can, we can, cody. i want to. i’ve missed this. i’ve missed you.”

cody sets his jaw and tries not to give into the slow exhales landing directly onto his lips. his heart is hammering so hard against his chest that it fucking hurts. he can hear the blood pumping through his head, it’s nearly unbearable. and he’s trying to focus on so many things at once, trying to convince himself that he doesn’t want this all while he’s getting it 

and maybe it’s wrong. but one more time won’t hurt. one more for old time’s sake.

“okay,” he mutters, too quiet. “okay, yeah, i - i’ve missed us.”

“i know,” noel breathes, and it’s all he gets out before he’s kissing him. in some dirty bathroom in a run-down bar, grabbing cody’s hips like it’s all he knows and nudging him up onto the counter.

his hand drifts to the back of his neck, holding him in place, and cody remembers to shut his eyes, remembers to open his mouth, remembers to keep all the noises smothered while noel bites and licks and takes. cody can’t think straight anymore, can barely hear the voices. it’s just a loop of _shit, shit, shit_ and cody forgets not to grind his hips forward, panting hard.

when noel pulls back, he lets his eyes drop immediately, smiling to himself. he says, “fuck, i’ve been waiting,” and his voice is drenched in want and cody wants to give him his everything.

he isn’t sure what happened to not caring.

“yeah, yeah, yeah,” he says, quickly, his breath heavy as he rolls his hips forward. his dick fills and his toes curl, noel grabs his hips and holds him steady, rips an involuntary whine from his throat.

“shh, baby, i got you,” he says. “let me do this.”

and cody knows they’re both drunk, barely thinking straight, but he still realizes it’s a bad idea when he lets noel undo the button on his jeans.

+

getting knowing looks is probably the worst part of it. walking out with tousled hair and red features, smelling like sex and sweat. he wonders if it comes off just as prominent to anyone sitting next to him.

judging by the tight smiles and the dip in conversation, it probably does.

+

cody can’t and won’t hurt him, because he just isn’t sure if he’d let himself live that down.

+

_you don’t mean shit to me._

cody wants to scream and cry and kiss noel all at the same time, but he isn’t sure he can do that.

and he can tell himself that he doesn’t care all he wants, but he knows it isn’t true.

fuck it. everyone does.

“love yourself,” comes the friendly advice.

cody can’t believe he’s paying as much as he is for shit like that.

“have you tried telling him what you want?” comes the rest of it.

cody stares at his therapist with red-rimmed eyes and a broken heart stuttering against his ribs. he isn’t going to give her the cliché answer. something generic, unsure, unconfident. he isn’t convinced that would pass well. 

she hasn’t been very happy getting vague little things from cody in the past and he doubts she’ll want that now.

he shrugs, tips his head to stare at his hands. “i don’t know what i want.”

+

cody is tired of kissing strangers and pretending they’re noel. 

he’s tired of the pain, the disappointment, the let-downs. tired of feeling weak, worthless, and alone. because he’s supposed to feel like he’s on top of the world, is what they say. he’s supposed to be happy and yet, he feels like nothing. 

it’s like trying to live with an entire chunk of his life completely torn away from him, like baking a cake without the flour, or buying a car without the wheels. and he just can’t let it go, not when everything he looks at is nothing but a reminder of what he’s lost.

and sometimes - just _because_ \- sometimes he’ll go back.

back to someone who doesn’t care enough to call, or text, or even fucking email because _why not_. someone he shouldn’t see, someone that’s nothing but trouble, someone that probably hates his guts, yet someone that makes him feel _loved_.

and his therapist will ask him, the day after, she’ll ask him how he’s feeling.

which is fine, because cody can look her in the eyes and tell her, “pretty okay, actually,” and he won’t be lying, because he just keeps going back.


End file.
